


Stay Alive For Me

by theystayalive



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Based on a Twenty One Pilots Song, McMartinski - Freeform, Other, twenty one pilots - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:43:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7948402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theystayalive/pseuds/theystayalive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There really are no words right now. How are any of them supposed to find the right words now when they've been choking on them for the last two week?</p><p>They can't. That's the answer.</p><p>So they all put in their earbuds...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Alive For Me

Stiles gripped the steering wheel so tightly it hurt. The song playing over his stereo and his white knuckled grip felt like the only thing anchoring him.

_“Get up Johnny Boy, get up. Get up because the world has left you lying on the ground”._

He distracted himself by counting road signs as they passed by.

Twenty one. Twenty Two. Twenty three.

He had to focus on the destination. He was too afraid of his mind wondering to all of his mistakes and pain if he didn't just keep counting the signs. Just keep counting the signs.

Twenty nine. Thirty. Thirty one.

_“You’re my pride and joy. Get up Johnny Boy, because we all need you now”._

They all needed him. They needed him to be strong and they needed him in one piece. Which is why he had to focus on the road signs.

Thirty five. Thirty six. Thirty seven.

Would it ever stop hurting? Hell, would he even feel anything other then this again? Because right now, in the quietness of his car, listening to an old song, counting road signs and trying to keep himself held together, he sort of felt like nothing would ever happen again. He looked up and saw that he was in the driveway. And he was already misty eyed. He cleared his throat and blinked rapidly. After inhaling and exhaling once, he pressed the horn to signal that he was there.

***

Lydia sat on her bed staring straight ahead at the dress hanging from the closet door. Her hair was ready, her makeup was done, and she was trying her hardest to focus on the melody of the song playing over her speakers instead of the color of the dress in front of her.

_“Open the slits in your face and start your day. You don’t have much time to make those slits look just right”._

It felt more like she was putting on noose instead of a dress. It looked ugly, sharp on the hanger. But she was pretty sure that right now, any dress in that color would have looked equally as hopeless. Slowly, Lydia rose and reached up, taking the it off the door. It was time to put it on and face the day she’d been dreading for two weeks. She could do this. She could be brave, too. 

_“Look in the mirror. Ask yourself if you’re alright”._

She felt for the zipper in the back and pushed it up, her breath seeming to go out of her body simultaneously. She felt suffocated. As if the the dress was two sizes too small for her. Which of course it wasn’t. But that didn’t stop her breath from hitching in her throat.

_“Put on the glitter your soul hides behind. You’re in my mind”._

Armor. That's what it felt like. It felt like she was putting on a suit of armor, piece by piece. Like it was something she could hide behind and guard herself with when the walls began to feel like they were caving in on her. Like right now. She was going to be a solider, not a girl tearing at the edges.

Lydia stood in front of the mirror and looked at the girl standing in front of her. Her eyes were so empty she barely recognized herself. She squeezed them shut and focused on the sound of each individual cord hitting the piano strings, matching her breaths to them. She opened her eyes only when she heard the horn in the driveway. Pulling back the curtains, she managed to crack a smile at the familiar blue jeep parked in her driveway. Now it was really time to be a solider.

***

Scott was there before anyone else. He wasn't sure exactly why he was there so early, somehow he had just ended up sitting on the steps of the platform, one earbud in.

_“I will fear the night again”._

One hour until he would be standing up on that platform, climbing and stumbling over the sadness like a mountain, to find the right words to say. How was he supposed to do this in one hour?

_“I hope I’m not my only friend…”._

Frustrated, he yanked out the ear bud and angrily switched off his music. Why was he listening to such a depressing song?

He knew why. She had loved this song. He closed his eyes and dropped his head, rubbing his temples and trying to remember his opening sentence. When he looked up, Stiles and Lydia were standing in front of him.

“Hi.” he said quietly.

Without a word and in tandem, the two sat down on either side of him, following his eyes to also look out over the empty pews.

“Were you listening to them, too?” Stiles asked, not taking his eyes off the empty church.

Scott nodded and set his phone on the floor next to him.

“So was I. In my room. Today.” said Lydia from the other side of him. They all fell back in silence. But it wasn’t a bad silence. It wasn’t crushing or loud or awkward. It was supportive. Comforting. The kind that is filled with a kind of quiet support that can only be felt by sharing silence with people you really, really care about.

After a while Scott looked at his friends. “You guys didn’t have to be here this early”.

“Sure we did,” answered Stiles, “We knew you would be”.

There wasn't really response to that. Scott knew there was no arguing. So they let the silence settle back in, each wondering how they were going to continue on with their lives after the next few hours.

***

The trio stood in the back hallway leading off stage, fidgeting and glancing nervously at each other.

Lydia was picking lint off Scott’s blazer. She looked at him seriously, “You remember your opening statement?”

“Thomas Jefferson once said that one man with courage is a majority and Allison Argent never ceased being that majority”.

Lydia gave her friend a small, proud smile and straightened his tie one last time. “Good luck, Scott. We’ll be right here the whole time”.

Stiles stepped forward, wiping his eye and hugging Scott tightly. “You can do this”.

Scott pulled away. Afraid that if he spoke anything other than the words he practiced on the piece of paper in his hands he'd lose his composure, he just nodded weakly.

“Now we will hear from Scott McCall, one of Allison’s best friends”. That was his cue.

Taking a shaky breath he took one last look at Stiles and Lydia, then stepped up onto the stage and set the two things in his hands down onto the podium. The paper that was going to anchor him to the podium, and a photograph of a smiling black haired girl named Allison. He stared at the picture for a moment then looked to his notes.

And all at once, he realized they seemed all wrong. They weren’t what he wanted to say to Allison. They were what Lydia had written for him that one night he had called her to come because he had no idea what he was supposed to say.

He thought back to the girl he had once known. The girl he had once loved. The girl who had once been his friend. The one who had once driven across a desert to rescue him. The girl who had drown to save her father. The girl who had died for her friends. He thought about what that girl would want him to say to comfort dozens of her loved ones, still reeling from the loss of a girl who had never cared about anyone other than the ones she’d loved.

He knew what he was going to say. He looked up out over the pews, now filled with faces all looking at him for something to hold on to. So that’s what he would give them.

“In the words of Allison’s favorite band, now the night is coming to an end, the sun will rise. And we will try again”.


End file.
